Archives for August 2022

I met with Russell Greenslade, chief executive of Swansea BID, on Monday to discuss the city centre and how the council can continue to work with the BID and its businesses post-pandemic. We’ve had a BID in Swansea since 2006, and over the past 16 years, we’ve worked closely with them in the common cause of maintaining and improving the vitality of the city centre, supporting communities and the environment.

Russell and I talked about the current status of the city centre and the improvements that have been made, and further projects in the pipeline. We also discussed encouraging signs from businesses and investors who are interested in setting up in Swansea and what the council can continue to do to assist.

We have a large number of staff involved both in project delivery and in ongoing city centre management. They are making a significant contribution to the wellbeing of the city centre and its future, and I wish to thank them all.

One great example of this work is the continuing contribution of the city centre rangers, jointly funded by us and BID. Earlier this month, they went to the aid of an elderly woman who fell and broke her hip outside the Lime store, keeping her comfortable till the ambulance arrived. A family member popped by the other day with her own thank-you to the team and the good news that her mum is doing well.

Corporate Regional Joint Committee

The regional corporate joint committee (CJC) also met this week. It’s a partnership of public bodies in South West Wales, including the national parks of Brecon and Pembrokeshire, chaired by our Leader. It’s focused on some specific activities around planning, regional transport, and economic well-being, including skills and energy. We were pleased to host its first face-to-face meeting this week, as previous meetings had taken place online. There was a lot to discuss, and it’s clear that in the future a growing number of our staff will be directly involved in delivering on the CJC’s ambitions and the complementary city deal programme.

Back to the future

When reflecting on the role of the CJC, I’m reminded that the decisions we take today can have big effects on future generations. One such example from the past is the M4, its Swansea stretch celebrating its 50^th birthday next month, about which I was contacted by one of our former engineers, Helen Steane. The M4 was originally planned to end at Port Talbot. But thanks to the work of our officers and the pressure they applied to the Welsh Office to think again, what began as a Morriston by-pass morphed into the motorway we see today, with all the attendant economic benefits it has brought for our communities since. It struck me as a really good example of why, these days, taking account of the Welsh Government’s Future Generations Act is important in taking major decisions that will affect our children and their children too.  

Congratulations

After last week’s success stories from the A-Level results, this week it was the turn of GCSE students to shine. Once again, the results showed Swansea pupils did better than the Wales average with our overall pass rate of 97.9% compared to 97.3%. Even more notable are the results for the highest grades, where 27.9% of city pupils gained A* and A grades compared to 25.1% across the country. Congratulations to all and good luck for the future.

Thank you

It’s always great to hear stories about the staff who go the extra mile for the people we serve. So well done this week to Swansea Indoor Market assistant Ross Poiner, who took the initiative when a customer on a mobility scooter needed help accessing the market’s changing places toilet. The customer sent an email of thanks to Ross to the council leader, and I add my thanks to his as these small acts of kindness are very well appreciated by the public.

My thanks this week to all those who attended my Let’s Talk about the council’s culture session on Monday. We recorded the meeting and you can watch it here.

The discussion was wide-ranging and very interesting, especially around the issue of staff engagement. My view is that it needs to be a central part of what we do, as there is lots of evidence to show that engaged staff are more productive and, just as important, happier in their jobs. Reflecting on the session, I’ll be asking the new staff engagement group to consider putting together a fresh survey about engagement. Our normal staff survey offers great feedback on how engaged and informed people feel about the council, but we want to know more about what the engagement looks like and how we can go further to improve it. We’ll also be discussing this with the trade unions. I’m anticipating that we can build what comes out of the survey into our future plans, including the corporate plan and our transformation strategy.

Budget

CMT this week had its first face-to-face awayday for probably two years. There was a lot to discuss at the awayday with a number of items on the agenda, including a look at the updated corporate risk register and a review of the transformation programme. We also considered a commitment to participate in a poverty truth commission. I’ll do further updates on these in this blog as the plans develop. We also got a first detailed look at next year’s budget.

As I’ve said in previous blogs, next year’s budget is going to be very tough. Our continuing sound financial management over the last couple of years will be a help, but we all know from how things are at home that inflation and the cost of everything is starting to hurt. Similarly, everything we buy and operate is becoming more costly, and as CMT and Cabinet get further into the process, we’ll be engaging staff about how we’ll be managing these and other services pressures while delivering a balanced budget. I’ll keep you posted.

Drought status

As you might have seen in the media, Natural Resources Wales has declared drought status for Swansea and South West Wales. While they’ve introduced a hosepipe ban in Pembrokeshire and part of Carmarthenshire, that’s not happened here yet. We’re being asked to save water as much as possible and we are looking closely at how the council can do that. There’s more information from NRW here.

Very good news

I’d like to thank one of our community care assistants, Mandy Baker, for her response to an emergency at a house she was visiting. When she arrived Mandy found her client drifting in and out of consciousness, but thanks to her swift action the lady is now in a stable condition in hospital. It goes without saying the lady’s family are extremely grateful. Well done Mandy, and thanks to all our community care assistants who go above and beyond daily.

Well done

Congratulations to all those who got their A-Level results yesterday. The outcomes testify to the remarkable resilience that students, school teachers and staff and parents have shown over the last couple of years. I wish all the students well for their futures.

Thank you

A word of thanks to the Land Train team for their commitment to customer service this week. It’s a popular and busy service, especially in the summer. But one customer was so impressed with how they took the time to take care of her autistic son and her disabled mother that she felt compelled to write in to express her gratitude for their support.

Some great news today: we’ve been shortlisted for Council of the Year in the APSE Annual Service Awards 2022. You might remember last week I mentioned seven of our teams were shortlisted for awards at the event being staged at Swansea Arena next month. Being nominated for Council of the Year is on top of them and is a fantastic reflection of all the innovative practice and hard work done by you for the people of Swansea over the last few years. My congratulations to you all.

Regeneration

On Monday I had the pleasure of visiting two major heritage regeneration projects with our Interim Director of Place Mark Wade – Palace Theatre and Hafod-Morfa Copperworks – which are helping to change our city skyline and develop our economy.

While there’s still lots of scaffolding around the 134-year-old Grade II listed Palace Theatre, there’s real progress being made inside. The £5m scheme will make an important contribution to the look and feel of the High Street.

I was also pleased to see great strides being made at Hafod-Morfa Copperworks. When completed, it’s going to be a major attraction, drawing in many tens of thousands of visitors every year. The latest milestone will soon see the site handed over to Welsh drinks specialist Penderyn for fitting out as a distillery and visitor centre.

My thanks go to Paul Relf and Tracy Nichols and the teams for their effort on such important projects and, as I’ve said before in this blog, if you’d like me to visit your workplace for a chat and to show me around, please do get in touch.

Grant applications

Projects like the Palace Theatre and Hafod-Morfa Copperworks are often made possible thanks to successful applications for external funding. This week we’ve put in bids for millions of pounds of support from the UK Government under the UK Shared Prosperity Fund and the Levelling Up Fund.

The UK Shared Prosperity Fund is part of a series of funds that go some way to replacing EU funding following Brexit. Swansea Council is leading on the fund for South West Wales, and we’ve now submitted the £130m Regional Investment Plan setting out at high level how the funds will be used. Swansea’s allocation of £34m sounds like a lot, but in practice bids will be very competitive and we need to ensure a range of partners are delivering funds alongside our own departments.

We have also submitted four projects to the Levelling Up Fund, which is for large-scale capital regeneration programmes. The projects include the Lower Swansea Valley, consolidating Hafod-Morfa Copperworks mentioned above and works around the Strand tunnels. Our bid also aims to expand and enhance Swansea Museum, develop a City Centre programme working with Urban Splash to extend public realm links around the Arena to both the city core and the sea, and prepare for new office and niche retail offers. There are also proposals for Port Eynon facilities and major works on the Fabian Way corridor to provide access to a string of development sites, not least Blue Eden. Combined, these bids are worth over £100m and will make a huge difference for our city in future years. The UK Government is due to make announcements on the successful projects in October this year. My thanks to all those who’ve been involved in putting together these strong cases for support.

Talking about culture

On August 15 I’ll be heading up the latest instalment of the Let’s Talk…. staff discussion series. We’ll be looking at the council’s working culture and how it impacts what we do to support service delivery and our residents every day. It’s an online event, so it’s easy to join in. I hope it’ll be a lively session and if you want to drop by, please register here. If you can’t make it and want to ask a question, please send an email to Rachel.Healion@swansea.gov.uk

Thank you

This weekend Swansea’s hosting two international sporting events, the Volvo 2022 World Triathlon Para Series on Saturday and IRONMAN 70.3 on Sunday. Thank you to our cultural services’ special events team, the highways team and many others within the council who are working hard to ensure both events are a big success. If you can, do get out there and cheer on the competitors.

Well done also to the parks team for retaining coveted Green Flag awards at six of our city’s favourite parks. It’s quite an achievement to maintain such high standards year after year, and I know the hard work is really appreciated by the public.

Annual leave

I’m on leave next week, so my blog will return in a fortnight. If you’re taking leave, I hope you have a great time.